If you find it suffocating lately, it may not be the haze but quite likely it is due to the oppressive tactics by our government to suppress views that are critical of them and their policies.

I had been hopeful that the PAP-led government would change for the better when I first started my blog post GE 2011. Unfortunately, those upbeat sentiments went downhill fast after watching the words and actions by the ministers over the past 2 years. To be fair, there were some positive changes, such as the review of ministerial salaries (lower but still the world’s highest) and various attempts made by the government to engage the citizens more such as through the National Conversation (which has been subjected to both praise and scorn).

However, such improvements get overshadowed whenever the Government issues threatening lawyers letters , exercises heavy use of the law and carries out other…

I write this note not merely to explain the circumstances behind my departure from the Board of Directors of the Association of Muslim Professionals (AMP) and stepping down as Chairman of the Board of Centre for Research on Malay and Islamic Affairs (RIMA).

More importantly, I am compelled to set out the approach taken by the State to suppress critical views.

This is troubling and goes entirely against the grain of reported statements by Deputy PM Tharman Shanmugratnam that the Ruling Party will be an open political party that “is dominant but not dominating”, but one that seeks to galvanize a diversity of views and ideas, including critical opinions.

The gist of the following account is set out in an Email that I had written to both AMP and RIMA Boards on 22 Apr 2013. The contents of this Email remain unchallenged.

In the first, a commentary piece, Yolanda Chin discusses how and why National Service (NS, i.e. conscription) policies pertaining to male Permanent Residents (PRs) of the country should be changed, suggesting that such policies should adjust to the reality of “today’s new migrant” and complex, evolving social and global phenomena.

Unlike today, the conscription of PRs was non-controversial when it was first introduced in the Enlistment Act of 1970.

There was no question then that citizens were better off than PRs; PRs were required to serve NS alongside citizens, even though state-sponsored benefits remained the exclusive preserve of citizens.

The readiness of these PRs to die for the defence of Singapore was due to the fact that they were stateless individuals displaced by Singapore’s separation from Malaysia, and they aspired for citizenship which few qualified for.

Statelessness was a condition that allegedly led many (men) to consider – and fulfill – the obligations of citizenship then. Never mind that citizenship in a state should have been first and foremost seen and implemented as a human right, as per Article 15 of the UDHR – and not merely a framework for invoking a set of privileges and responsibilities in policymaking. (For further reading, case studies such as this on ‘Statelessness and the Benefits of Citizenship’ is useful to both get a broader picture as well as an idea of specific country situations.)

Last month marked the 10th year (on 19 March 2003 to be exact) since the US-led invasion of Iraq, also known as the Iraq War. This is a war that has cost (for the United States at least) up to three trillion dollars and at least 190,000 deaths – military, ‘contractor’, and civilian(*).

Here is a selection of articles giving a broad overview of reflections.

Leading up to it, James Fallowsof The Atlantic magazine ruminates on his initial and consistent opposition (good man!) to the George W. Bush administration’s and neo-conservatives’ folly. Fallows gives a seven-point commentary.

…And where they are
International relations scholar Robert Kellyposits a neo-con ‘theory’ (of international relations or otherwise) behind their justification of the war. Bear in mind that he’s not trying to justify it from their point of view, but rather to come up with a plausible explanation why they pushed so hard for war – and got it.

Personally, I think any such theories are hogwash, flawed to the point of ridiculousness. There are theories and ideologies that are appropriate for certain times, and others that are not. The ‘justifications’ for invading Iraq – including from the so-called liberal imperialists interventionists – belong to the latter category.

In my previous post, I had pointed out the Orwellian signs in the way our country is being governed. And I had asked if the PAP government is stepping up its attempts to mould and align young Singaporeans’ thinking with the government’s doctrines through the new measures introduced by the Ministry of Education.

Lo and behold, PM Lee Hsien Loong said some things yesterday that confirmed my suspicions and dampened my hopes that he and the other PAP leaders would be able to change to be more open minded.

In his address to PAP party activists on Saturday, PM basically told them there is no room for any other political party in Singapore except for the PAP.

“If Singapore had a blue constituency and a red constituency, I think Singapore will be in trouble,” he said. This is not the worrying part as one would expect him to use scare…